Using gold colloid nanoparticles to modulate the surface enhanced fluorescence of Rhodamine B

Enhanced fluorescence from Rhodamine B (RB) mixed with gold colloids has been observed under ultraviolet irradiation. Spectroscopic studies show that with the increasing gold colloids content, the fluorescence of RB at about 590 nm increases firstly and then decreases with slight red shift. These features observed in the experiment can be explained by the local electric field enhancement via surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of gold nanoparticles. Fluorescence enhancement is obtained when the emission frequency of RB lies within the bandwidth of local field enhancement from gold nanoparticles. Theoretical calculation results show that the local field band red shifts obviously with increase the thickness of dye shell which capped on gold particle, whereas the fluorescence band of RB is fixed around 590 nm. Therefore, the red shift and non-monotonic change of fluorescence intensity from RB is attributed to the dye shell dependent red shift of local field band of gold particles.